The Swedish Fund Selection Agency (FTN) has launched its biggest procurement exercise to date for the premium pension funds platform it is in the process of revamping, inviting bids to provide potentially SEK155bn (€13.6bn) of active and passive Swedish equities funds.
The FTN (Fondtorgsnämnden) yesterday afternoon announced that the twin tender process for the two categories, focusing mainly on large and mid-cap companies, was now open, with a deadline of 31 October 2024.
The details indicate the number of funds offered to the public in those categories will be reduced to around 15 from 34.
Erik Fransson, executive director of FTN, said: “We hope that all fund managers who consider themselves to have competitive funds will submit tenders.”
He added: “Swedish equity funds are an important building block for many savers and an important product for many Swedish fund managers.”
The agency, which has been tasked as part of a major overhaul of the premium pension system’s funds platform with procuring funds to replace the current offering, said at the end of May that the procurements for actively and passively managed Swedish equities funds would happen after the summer.
The FTN has given the market more than three months to comment on the preliminary specifications published at that time, but said yesterday that it had made no significant changes to the documentation following that consultation.
Fund managers can now submit tenders, which must be received by the FTN no later than 31 October, digitally via the e-Avrop procurement platform, the agency said.
As of 31 July, there was more than SEK155bn invested in Swedish equities funds on the premium pension fund platform, belonging to more than a million pension savers, FTN added.
That total is divided between 23 actively managed Swedish equity funds and 11 passively managed such funds on the fund platform.
“FTN intends to procure a maximum of 10 actively managed Swedish equity funds and a maximum of five passively managed Swedish equity funds,” the agency said.
Up to now, all private companies wanting to offer funds to the public on Sweden’s first-pillar premium pension platform have been able to do so as long, as they meet certain criteria.
Those offerings are gradually being replaced, category by category, with a smaller number of funds procured by the FTN with the aim of improving the quality of the selection.
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